[Milsurplus] PSYOPS SONY 8600 VTRS! AIRBORNE LOW POWER BROADCASTING

[Ray Fantini]

Commando Solo the EC-130 J operated by the 4th PSYOP, 193rd Special Operations Wing of the PA Air Guard in Middletown is the best example of broadcasting from the air, but knowing a little of the history of this type of operation and how it evolved from the EC-121, Coronet Solo in Vietnam in the late sixties and then the EC-130 by 1980 have to wonder what the point of the helicopter operated system was? The large ships provided a platform that would easily accommodate AM, FM and television broadcast transmitters, antennas and the required playback equipment. As far as I know live transmission was never conducted on any of the PSYOP flights with all broadcasting being pre recorded. Acrodyne has been a manufacture of television transmitters and translators forever and over the years I have worked on much of their equipment and refer to them as "Acrodog", they are still in business but that is only building high powered television transmitters and selling Rhodes & Schwartz products for anything below 5 to 10 kW. The Sony equipment in the report is fairly standard early seventies stuff. The report is referring to a Sony VO-8600 that is a 1/2" open reel EIAJ B&W video recorder, they use to be as common as dirt but thinking about it now I have not seen one in years but at one time spent many hours operating and repairing them.  The VO-1600 they refer to is the very first of the U-Matic 3/4" tape machine ever produced by Sony, they rarely worked on the ground on a stable platform and cannot imagine them working in a helicopter. Some of the later test used the Sony AV-3400 and AVC-3400 Sony equipment that was Sony's first widely available B&W portable system using a small portable 1/2" open reel VTR that was also EIAJ standard so its tapes would play or it would play tapes from other systems and the AVC-3400 portable B&W camera that connected directly to the AV-3400 by a twelve pin connector. That set up is what many television stations first used for remote news gathering before everyone went to color. The AKAI CVC -150 color video camera was a two part two tube nightmare, cameras of that time all had no electronic iris control so the operator had to manually adjust the zoom, focus and iris, and then try to balance color for the type of light the camera was being used under. The B&W cameras also had the same problem but were generally better cameras and produced a useable picture over a wider range and the B&W cameras were also much higher resolution then what was available with the limited one or two tube color cameras, weird thing is AKAI manufactured a 1/4 recorder for use with that camera and why they did not use that as opposed to the Sony open reel color system. Everything used in the report has the disadvantage of being right on the edge of when video equipment evolved into something that was way ahead of the junk that was before it. By 1976/77 modern 3/4 Umatic portables appeared along with far superior cameras and by 1980 8mm VCR and camera technology caused that stuff that was produced in the early seventies to look like dinosaurs. You use to see that open reel video stuff at Hamfest ten or fifteen years ago but have not seen any or not bothered to notice any recently, the VO-8600 is easy to recognize because the outside of the case and top cover are bright orange. The AV-3400/AVC-3400 were tan or badge and usually came in a huge gray plastic transit case along with the spare batteries and the leatherette brown plastic carrying bag.  I have personally sent tons of this stuff to recycling.  
RF

-----Original Message-----
From: milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of COURYHOUSE at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 6:05 PM
To: Milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Milsurplus] PSYOPS SONY 8600 VTRS! AIRBORNE LOW POWER BROADCASTING

 
PSYOPS SONY 8600 VTRS!   AIRBORNE LOW POWER BROADCASTING
PSYOPS SONY 8600 vtrs!  
_http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/780729.pdf_ (http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/780729.pdf) 
as raved about on _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) 
 
If  you have  anything related to this we are happy to buy  it.
 
ed sharpe archivist for smecc